kloetzel&co. presented Caper at the Northwest New Works Festival at On the Boards in Seattle. Chalie Livingston and Jeff Curtis joined kloetzel&co. and John Masserini in a joyous romp with gumballs, splintering tables, witty film work, and Eric Mandat’s resolutely non-climactic score. Caper flirts with competition and perspective on a grand scale as music, dance, and film all combine in a bizarrely sexy circus world.
In 2006, kloetzel&co. in collaboration with clarinetist John Masserini, pianist Mark Neiwirth, tenor Geoffrey Friedley, poet Greg Nicholl, and filmmaker Jeff Curtis presented an evening-length gambol through multiple disciplines at the Bistline Theatre at the brand new ISU Performing Arts Center. Pairing kloetzel&co. with live avant garde twentieth century music, textual collage, and film work, It’s OK, no one’s looking tested the boundaries of collaboration and convention: dancers careened off 50s-style tables, singers flew through the air while vocalizing in varied tongues, and a clarinetist discovered pelvic flare as he worked through frantic trilling. Included live performances of John Cage’s chance creation “Aria”, Eric Mandat’s dramatic “Tricolor Capers,” Emma Lou Diemer’s “Tocata,” and Joan Tower’s “Wings”. Pieces from It’s OK, no one’s looking went on to performances in Seattle, Victoria, Flagstaff, and Calgary.
Nicole Wolcott and kloetzel&co., created an evening of ferocious movement and quirky characters in six unique pieces. Performed in a funky run-down theatre above a popular Missoula bar, Out of the Cool featured the premiere of Redress, Kloetzel’s artful musing about Beethoven and shoes, the premiere of Title Track, as well as the restaging of two of her most popular New York works, prepick and Shed.
Serious Rock offered an evening-length production of live music and dance celebrating the ridiculous and sublime moments of the performer’s life. Performed at the Clark Studio Theater at NYC’s Lincoln Center with music by the kloetzel&co. band, the evening premiered Sweet Betty and postpick, which both included live music composed and performed by Melanie Kloetzel. The evening also recapped the popular prepick and Shed, which had enjoyed presentation through Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, the 92nd Street Y, the Flea Theater, the Cunningham Studios, and Movement Research at the Judson Church. Dancers for the evening included kloetzel&co. members Julie Betts, Theresa Palazzo, Ayla Yavin, and Chalie Livingston. Jennifer Dunning of The New York Times called the evening “…a rare occurrence in dance.” Serious Rock was also presented at Swarthmore College through the “Window on the Work” series. With support from the 92nd Street Y and the Brooklyn Arts Council.
MEN in charge, a dance theatre work by kloetzel&co., explores the transformation of democracy as ‘alternative facts’ and outlandish acts populate the political landscape. A droplet of intelligence here, a hint of a shadowy figure, and we are all marionettes, putty in the puppet master’s hands.
Commissioned by CrossCurrents 2016, a showcase version of It began with watching premiered at Pumphouse Theatres in February 2016. After residencies at the University of Calgary and the DJD Dance Centre funded by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the work grew into an evening-length site-based work and a 35-minute theatre work. The theatre version premiered at the 2017 Fluid Movement Arts Festival. It then toured to the Brian Webb Dance Company series in Edmonton in September 2018 and to New Horizons Dance in Regina in May 2019. The work is currently being used as a basis for a documentary film, MEN, due for release in 2020.
It began with watching also exists as a site-adaptive work for boardrooms and government spaces.